


stealing the sun is not enough

by pududoll (aprilclash)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Demigods, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, broken!nohyuck, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13471851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilclash/pseuds/pududoll
Summary: Mark Lee is a demigod with a knack for terrible decisions and a crush on Donghyuck from Apollo's cabin.





	1. stealing the sun is not enough

**Author's Note:**

> Because archer!Donghyuck is now a thing and this fic basically wrote itself.
> 
> Also now there's art for it:  
> [markhyuck sleeping under the oak tree from (18)](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/975520739389595653), courtesy of twitter user yaori94 ♥

1 0

When Mark is ten years old, Lee Donghyuck from Apollo’s cabin places an apple on his head and tells him to stand still if he doesn’t want a hole in his forehead. Donghyuck is tiny, stubborn and incredibly loud, like Mark learned through an unfortunate ordeal that involved a flaming chariot, magical cows and a couple of terrible decisions. But more than everything Donghyuck is a son of Apollo which means that, in Camp Half-Blood’s complicated social ladder, he sits a lot higher than Mark, a son of nobody. So Mark complies.

Donghyuck’s arrow doesn’t hit the apple.

Na Jaemin slams into him from behind, thinking he was training with one of the wooden targets behind the training barracks and not with Mark’s head at stake. Donghyuck lets out the softest, tiniest _umph_ as he stumbles forward, and then he panics and looks at Mark as the arrow flies between them and Mark closes his eyes and hopes Donghyuck’s terrified face is not the last thing he sees.

It’s not, but it’s a close call. If Mark has to be completely honest, it was Jaemin’s fault. Donghyuck would’ve hit the apple, no matter what. Donghyuck never misses. Perks of being a son of Apollo.

Donghyuck cries that day. It’s the first time Mark has seen him cry and it’s ugly and a little pathetic, but really satisfying for him to see. Jaemin apologizes until he has no voice left. The arrow burrows into the frail summer wood of the oak behind Mark, leaving a bloody trail on his cheek that heals quickly and doesn’t scar. Mark lives.

When Chiron asks what happened to his face Mark shrugs and says, “I was sparring with the other kids of Hermes’ cabin.”

Dionysus looks unimpressed. “I have my eyes on you, Mark Lee. And on your friend Donghyuck too. Don’t think I don’t know what you two did last summer with Apollo’s chariot, even if he covered for the both of you in the end. Any false move this year and you’ll be expelled!”

Mark knows Dionysus can’t actually expel him, but he doesn’t test his luck. He ducks his head low, bows a few more times for good measure, and runs away.

Later that night, Lee Donghyuck tiptoes inside Hermes’ cabin, steps over Jaemin and squats down in front of Mark’s bed.

“Thank you for covering for me even if I almost killed you,” he says, in his squishy voice, scrunching his squishy nose, being overall very squishy and cute. “I owe you a favor, Mark Lee. You can ask me anything.”

Eight years later, Mark asks Donghyuck to go out with him.

1 9

Donghyuck is a messy eater, a messy speaker, a messy runner and a messy fighter, even. He half-asses everything that can be half-assed, and even some things that cannot be half-assed, like sleeping or making small talk or confessing his feelings. Well, he half-asses those things too.

“It’s like a... superpower,” he says, distractedly, when Mark scolds him, for the seventh time this day, asking why the fuck he can’t take things seriously we’re on a mission you could kill us all.

“Language,” Renjun singsongs.

“Look, there’s a swing over there. I wonder if someone has ever half-assed playing on a swing,” Donghyuck says. Mark has to grab him from the back of his shirt to keep him from trying it out.

“That’s just an excuse to break formation and leave us alone to fight the Chimera. Don’t you dare, Lee Donghyuck.”

“Or else?”

Jaemin glares at them. “Hey, stop it! You either hunt or flirt. I’m tired of third-wheeling.” He looks at Jeno and Renjun and grimaces. “Fifth-wheeling. I should’ve stayed home with the kids. Third-wheeling with them is funnier.”

Renjun snorts in response and Mark shushes all of them. He doesn’t want Renjun and Jaemin to get into another argument over who’s worse at dating Jeno. They both suck and Mark should’ve dated Jeno instead. Except he’s an idiot and now he’s stuck with Donghyuck.

Speaking of Donghyuck... Mark turns to look at him and pales.

“Guys, where did Donghyuck go?” he asks, but Renjun interrupts him.

“Forget about that little shit, we have more pressing matters to worry about.”

The Chimera is, well, a Chimera. An ugly monster patchwork, Donghyuck would say. And it’s strong.

“I’m taking the lion head,” says Mark. “Jaemin, the snake-head! Jeno, Injunnie, try to drive it against the pond!”

The little park is mercifully deserted, or not even the Mist could have covered up what was happening, four young men with spears and swords and sleek armors fighting against a monster with three heads who spits fire and can fly.

Mark ducks, dodging a blaze of blue flames. He hears Renjun cry out but when he looks up he realizes that the son of Athena is not in danger. The Chimera seems to smile from its goat head - Mark mentally adds _can imitate human voices well_ to the thing he knows about this creature - then it jumps on Mark, taking advantage of his distraction.

He closes his eyes and hopes the Chimera’s ugly mug is not the last thing he sees.

It’s not, but it’s a close call. Another. An arrow flies right through the lion head’s left eye and the creature stops to wail in pain. Mark looks behind just in time to see Donghyuck, perched on the branch of one of the chestnut trees of the park, his body one thing with the taut bow and arrow.

Donghyuck might suck at many things, voluntarily or out of raw talent, but the things he’s good at... He makes sure they’re perfect.

He breathes and lets the arrow go.

It hits the target.

1 3

Zeus claims Mark as his son the day before his thirteenth birthday. Lightning hits him while he trains in the barracks. The barracks are destroyed. Mark survives. It’s a sign. Dionysus sulks and complains about it for months. Mark is sent to Zeus’ Cabin. All is well.

Except nothing is well. Not at all. First. Mark misses Jaemin’s snoring. Second. Donghyuck is too scared of Taeyong to come and visit in the middle of the night to involve Mark in some stupid plot that will probably result in their painful, tragicomic death. Third. Taeyong.

Taeyong is prettier than Mark, stronger than Mark, friendlier than Mark, he’s the perfect, unreachable son of the king of the gods who can defeat Titans single-handedly and without messing his haircut.

“Actually, that’s Jaehyun,” complains Taeyong when Mark blurts his worries at him. “The whole perfect haircut concept, that’s Jaehyun’s thing. I just try not to get him killed. Sons of Aphrodite, being pretty is their thing.”

“I think you’re pretty too,” he says, and he even forgets to cover his mouth after he said that. A whopping three hours ago, Mark Lee wouldn’t have dared to breathe in Lee Taeyong’s direction. Now he’s calling him pretty. To his face.

The irony is not lost on Taeyong either because he smiles, wry and awkward.

“You’re not that bad either, little brother.” He scratches at his head and looks around the cabin because it’s past midnight and he probably needs his beauty sleep. To look shiny and perfect and heroic tomorrow morning. “Just... take a bed. Any bed. Don’t leave your stuff laying around. Don’t touch anything.”

“Are you a neat freak?” Mark asks, suddenly realizing his mere presence here is enough to make Taeyong panic.

“I am.”

“Oh god... I mean, oh Zeus Almighty.”

“You mean, oh Father.”

So, Taeyong has a sense of humor. And it’s really sour. It’s lot of information to file away.

“I’m really glad Donghyuck is too scared of you to visit.”

Taeyong thinks about it for a moment.

“Donghyuck? Tiny? Loud? Son of Apollo?” He shivers. “Oh Father, I’m really glad too.”

1 8

Donghyuck kisses like he shoots and like he smiles, with his whole body, never missing the target, and to kill.

1 6

In the span of six months, Jeno dates Jaemin, Renjun, Jaemin again, Renjun again, Lucas, Jungwoo, Jaemin and Renjun at the same time, unbeknownst to both of them, which spawns the biggest fight their group has ever seen. While Mark waits for his turn, the unexpected happens. He falls in love with Donghyuck.

At first, it’s a little inconceivable. Donghyuck is not pretty. Donghyuck is not sexy. Donghyuck is...

“Donghyuck is gross,” Taeyong says, when he knows. “You can’t have him over. Ever.”

It’s not the best time to tell him Donghyuck was camping in their cabin until twenty minutes ago, before he left so that Mark could deal with his newfound feelings alone. “You can’t do stuff with him. Or with anyone else. Don’t do stuff.”

It’s pretty hypocritical coming from Taeyong, who sucks faces all the time with his favorite son of Aphrodite without a single care for Mark’s innocent eyes. Inside their shared cabin.

“If you like him enough to look past the fact the he doesn’t brush his teeth after eating chips and you’re still willing to kiss him, then it must be real love,” Taeyong says, in the end.

It’s a strange advice, but it’s a good advice.

Mark tries to focus on the grossness. On the way Donghyuck laughs with his mouth open while he eats and ends up spluttering food everywhere. On the grass stains on his knees instead of the flowers he tucks behind his ears. On his ability to fall asleep anywhere, anytime, preferably on someone’s shoulder so he can soak it with drool.

They’re at the lake and Chenle, the tiniest, meanest son of Hades, is screeching in the background while he chases butterflies with Jisung and the armada of invincible skeletons that babysits him all the time, Hades’ orders. Jeno, Renjun and Jaemin are probably somewhere, solving their romantic triangle through a death battle or rock-scissor-paper.

It’s only Mark and Donghyuck, under the oak tree. Donghyuck’s bow, a gift from his father, is laying on the grass, discarded after Donghyuck used it to cut a floating hair in two or some of the other equally impossible things Apollo’s children do when they’re bored.

Donghyuck is dozing off, his head heavy on Mark’s shoulder, his nose buried in Mark’s hoodie - _Camp Half-Blood Summer Games 2017 Team Mycenae_. (Donghyuck used to have an identical one but he lost it during an ugly meeting with a Harpy last year. It’s a pity, because it was a good memory. Their team won first place.) 

It’s a little uncomfortable because Donghyuck drools when he sleeps. He twitches a lot too, like cats when they dream of chasing humans sometimes. And he licks his lips. And he’s overall gross, like, really, he’s always gross, but then he stretches and snuggles against Mark and his shirt rides a little over his hips, revealing a sliver of his tummy, just a flash of golden skin and his cute bellybutton - and something electric shoots through Mark - like the day his father claimed him by hitting him with lightning, it didn't hurt but it echoed through him, a powerful vibration, a tingle in his gut, like Mark was nothing more than a resonating chamber for energy. That’s how Mark feels now.

“Stop moving,” mumbles Donghyuck, his voice thick and chalky with sleep.

Mark shivers again and Donghyuck sighs and half-climbs in his lap to fall asleep on his chest. Mark pats his head, awkwardly, and Donghyuck whines a little and smiles and Mark feels it again, electricity running through his body, like something in him is moving, clenching and unclenching, even if he’s perfectly still.

There’s the faintest trace of breadcrumbs and jam at the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth. Mark closes his eyes when he realizes he’d gladly kiss it away. His body tingles at the thought. He’s fucked.

1 4

Zeus is not really an attentive parent. He sends a postcards to Mark and Taeyong at the beginning of the year, a gift on their birthday - usually a weapon, armory or something equally unamusing - and a sexual education pamphlet when Mark hits fourteen.

Taeyong takes a look at it and frowns.

“I’m disappointed. Mine was a lot more awkward.”

“I had the talk with my mom two months ago. I doubt your pamphlet could top that.”

Taeyong considers it. “Touché.”

In a fit of recklessness and teen rage, Mark decides to run away. It’s a terrible idea, he knows and he doesn’t care. He packs six chewing-gums, the three ten dollars bills his mom gave him for emergencies and his favorite spear - a spear, not any of the swords his father keep giving him. Swords are Taeyong’s weapon of choice, but Mark loves spears, has always loved spears and his father can’t even, he can’t even...

He takes a bus bound for NYC, then changes to another bus because fuck everything, he thinks, he wants to see Las Vegas. He runs out of money halfway and he tries to hitchhike his way towards the West Coast, but he’s a strange boy stranded at the side of the road with only a backpack, a spear and strange, curly hair, so no one stops for him.

It feels like an allegory of his life. No one ever stops for Mark Lee.

Donghyuck finds him at sunset, sitting on a rock and crying quietly.

“You’re a mess, son of Zeus,” he says. It sounds like an insult, when he says it like that, almost as if he’s disappointed in Mark. Mark rubs his eyes angrily and turns on the other side.

“Go away!” he mutters, with a sniff.

Donghyuck ignores him and drapes himself over his back.

“Where were you trying to go?” he asks, and it’s not like Mark wants to answer, but if he doesn’t answer Donghyuck will think he’s still crying.

“Vegas.”

It comes out really croaky, but Donghyuck smiles against his back. Mark can’t see it, but Donghyuck smiles are a full-body experience.

“Come on,” Donghyuck says. “Get up, we’re going.”

“I don’t want to go back to Camp Half-Blood.”

“Not to the camp, silly! We’re going to Las Vegas!”

“And how are getting to Las Vegas, genius? We have no money!”

Donghyuck smirks. “ _You_ have no money, son of Zeus. But you have the only thing someone running away from home needs.”

“Which is?”

“Me.”

Turns out Donghyuck stole his father’s credit card so they travel in first class, sleep at a fancy hotel and spend a ridiculous amount of time soaking in the hotel pool, since they’re not allowed to gamble and there’s nothing else to do in Las Vegas. And they only get attacked by monsters six times before an annoyed, fuming Apollo finds them.

“Give me back my credit card and get on the chariot son,” he growls. “You too, son of Zeus. Your father personally told me where to find your scrawny ass. You’re in trouble, young man. Remember when you stole my baby and created a firestorm in Oklahoma? Well, it doesn’t even come close to how much you’ll be scolded this time…”

Mark meekly sits on the backseat of his flaming chariot, but Donghyuck makes himself at home, even leaning his dirty shoes on the leather interns and earning himself another glare from his father.

“You’re the most irresponsible of my sons,” Apollo says, begrudgingly.

Donghyuck’s smile couldn’t be any more smug as he answers, “I knew I was born to excel.”

1 8

Donghyuck confesses first, but they’re in the middle of a fight and Mark doesn’t even realize he was being confessed to until three days later, when Renjun literally tells him.

“How can a person be so dense? Come on, Mark? Donghyuck has always been all over your ass for years. He’s Jeno’s best friend and he’s never even looked at Jeno like that once and we’ve _all_ looked at Jeno like that, even you… I don’t think there’s another way to look at Jeno…”

“It was only for a couple of months,” Mark says, automatically. He’s still trying to process Renjun’s words. “I mean, it wasn’t even a real crush.”

“It was a real crush Mark. And it was pretty obvious and pathetic. For you, for Donghyuck, who was crushing over you, and for Jeno, who was crushing over Donghyuck.”

“Wait- what?”

“Jeno, he had a crush on Donghyuck. He was waiting for him to fall at his feet like all his other friends did but-”

“Not that part!”

Renjun’s face does The Thing, a disappointed glare that usually manifests itself when the people around him fail to understand the most basic things.

“It’s the third time you make me say this today. At this point I don’t simply think you’re dense, I think you’re deaf.” He takes a deep breath. “Donghyuck was crushing over you. Since, I don’t know, forever? He’s been in love with you since the apple incident, probably. You were just too dumb to notice.”

Oh. _Oh._

1 7

When Mark is seventeen, Zeus decides maybe it’s time to save what’s left of his sinking relationship with his second son and invites him for dinner. Needless to say, Mark is terrified.

“I’ve only met him twice in my entire life! The first time I was two years old and the second I was dying... What if it’s awkward? What if he wants to talk about, I don’t know, golf and lightning and I know nothing about those and it’s silent and awkward, what if Hera hates me-”

“That’s not a _what if_ , my friend. You know she hates you,” Jaemin says, with an unapologetic shrug. “She tried to kill you three times this year. And it’s March.”

Mark groans.

“I can go with you, if it makes you feel any better,” Donghyuck says, from the other side of the bonfire. Mark didn’t even think he was listening, too busy cleaning his bow. But he was, and now he’s staring at Mark with his big, dark eyes and his heart-shaped lips parted and Mark likes him way too much to accept his help.

“Why would that make me feel any better?” he asks, as if meeting his father wasn’t already awkward enough without his crush’s presence.

“Actually, I think it could be a good idea,” Renjun says. “I mean, you’re worried about awkward silence, right? Donghyuck talks a lot. He’s always talking, man, sometimes I wish he could shut up, but at least there won’t be any awkward silence.”

Renjun said it’s a good idea and Renjun is the smartest in their group, so Mark accepts.

It is a terrible idea.

Donghyuck talks. He talks a lot. He laments the lack of appetizers, calls Mark’s father _daddy_ without a single shred of shame and antagonizes Hera, goddess of family, by asking her if she includes lgbtq+ families in her sphere of interest. And this is during the first ten minutes.

When Hera kindly kicks them out - they didn’t even get to the dessert - he sticks his tongue at the closed door, links arms with Mark and says, “Let’s go get ice cream, they don’t deserve our presence!”

Mark can’t say he doesn’t agree. Really, no one deserves Lee Donghyuck.

1 8

Donghyuck confesses first, but Mark asks him out first and they go for the kiss at the same time so that’s a tie. Except Donghyuck is a better kisser than Mark, so maybe he wins. Which means Mark also wins. Still a tie.

9

“Let’s steal the sun,” says the first kid Mark meets in Camp Half-Blood, after barreling into him. He has droopy eyes, tanned skin and a bow in his right hand and he’s wearing a yellow tee with _Apollo’s Cabin_ printed in huge, black letters over his chest. He can’t be more than nine years old. Oh, he apparently wants to steal the sun.

It’s a terrible idea. Mark accepts anyway.

-


	2. bonus. markhyuck | confession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since twitter user yaori94 asked for it and I love her a lot, I wrote the confession scene following Mark and Renjun's conversation~  
> There might be other bonus scenes in the future, so if there's something you want to see you can ask for it in the comments and I'll try to write it when I have time!

Mark runs.

Through the fields, through the training barracks, through the cabins.

It’s midday and the sun is shining too hard, too unforgiving, and the cicadas are screaming in the woods, leering at Mark from the tallest branches of the trees. It sounds like they’re mocking him for taking too much to realize. He probably deserves it.

He finds Donghyuck in Apollo’s cabin, talking to Baekhyun and Taeyeon. He turns when Mark runs through the door, eyes widening when, in his haste, Mark trips on someone’s boots and slams against the closet. He’s so wound up he doesn’t even feel the pain.

“Sorry, my fault,” Baekhyun says with an apologetic smile. Mark nods, bows a little out of reflex, but doesn’t even look at him.

Donghyuck is beautiful, even when he’s showing a hint of worry.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and Mark nods, frantically, breathless, eyes going everywhere but Donghyuck’s lips, because he’s not sure he wouldn’t kiss him on the spot in front of half the cabin. 

“Can we talk?” he says instead, feeling gross and breathless. Sweat cools uncomfortably on his nape and his voice sounds too rough and he clasps his hands together because he doesn’t know what to do with them.

Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Baekhyun and Taeyeon exchange a knowing look and he’s already blushing and he still doesn’t want to see what kind of face Donghyuck is making, and if Renjun lied to him Mark will kill him.

“I think you’re free to go, Hyuck, just come back for your tutoring duties,” says Taeyeon, and Donghyuck leads Mark outside, to the bay tree behind Apollo’s cabin.

There’s a swing there, and Mark remembers that time he lost a bet against Donghyuck back when they were maybe twelve, thirteen? No, younger, because Mark still didn’t know he was the son of Zeus. His punishment was swinging Donghyuck for the whole afternoon.

Jeno had joined them to make fun of Mark and where Jeno went Jaemin went and in the end Jisung had appeared out of nowhere and everyone was talking at the same time and no one was listening to Mark, as usual. No one but Donghyuck. Donghyuck always listened.

Donghyuck sits on the swing and Mark can finally look at him, at his big eyes, his tanned skin - it’s only the beginning of summer and his skin is peeling a little on his nose and ear from the sunburn he got during a mission with Renjun last week. 

“What do you need?” he asks, voice sweet and sticky like honey. (And now Mark knows what bees drowning in honey feel. Bliss.)

“I...” He stops, hesitates, because he’s never been good with words. He always ends up saying too much or too little or his words are too weak and too awkward and his voice cracks and-

“Do you remember when we were young and you almost decapitated me with an arrow?” he says, feeling the words leave his mouth without his approval, chasing each other in their haste to be heard.

Donghyuck scrunches his nose, maybe blushes a little. “I apologized, Mark, I apologized many times. I thought we were over that, I’m sorry-”

“No, I know. I know.” He swallows, wondering why his throat feels so dry, his hands feel so sweaty, the back of his neck feels so heavy, so much that he can’t even raise his head to meet Donghyuck’s eyes again. “I just... I meant... Do you remember what you said to me, afterwards?”

Donghyuck makes a tiny questioning sound, just a little hum, and Mark feels his face burn.

“You said I owed you a favor,” he continues. “That I could ask you anything. And I was thinking, you know, Vegas was nice last time, but we didn’t get to visit anything and your dad arrived and maybe you want to see it again, what do you say?”

“What?”

He makes the mistake of looking at Donghyuck. His eyes are impossibly big, and there’s something, it might be a smile, a hopeful, ecstatic, disbelieving smile, blossoming at the corner of his lips, not so quite there yet, just a promise of happiness. And Mark wants to collect it and tucks it in his pocket and keep it forever.

“Do you want to come to Vegas with me?”

“As a friend?” Donghyuck asks, the almost-a-smile still there, so fragile and precious and inconsistent and bright, and Mark shakes his head. He’s patient, okay, but he’s not sure he could spend another minute - let alone a weekend - as friends, knowing Donghyuck likes him back.

“If you don’t get it, I’m kinda asking you out.”

The smile that blooms on Donghyuck’s lips is not the teasing, charming smile he always sports, mischievous and naughty and glorious, like victory or fearless joy. It’s clean and pretty and it’s the first time Mark can see it up close - Donghyuck only smiles like this when he’s playing his brother’s lyre or climbing trees to find birds’ nests and cooing at the little chicks, clean and pretty and unabashedly happy but with a hint of wonder, like he’s just found a treasure.

And Mark reaches down - he really wants to take this smile, he wants it like he’s never wanted anything before. He puts his hands on Donghyuck’s cheeks, watches the sun shining through the branches of the trees and the blue of the sky, all reflected in his dark eyes, long lashes curving on his cheeks when he looks down and up again, staring at Mark, closer and closer, until Donghyuck closes the distance between them to press their lips together.

After that, Mark’s eyes flutter close and he doesn’t see anything else.

The kiss is long and soft and in the beginning they’re doing nothing but standing against each other, but at some point Mark’s hands slide down, lacing themselves on Donghyuck’s nape, drawing him close, and Donghyuck breathes against Mark’s mouth, the tiniest, inaudible sigh, before his lips part and he melts in Mark’s arms. His fingers find Mark’s shoulder, closing the embrace, and he smiles in the kiss – Mark can feel it against his lips – and when their eyes open Donghyuck is still doing just that, smiling. 

It’s his usual, bright smile, not the clean, pretty wonder he showed Mark moments ago – that smile is special, precious, and Mark will have to find a way to see it again, someday – but now it doesn’t matter, because Mark likes every single one of Donghyuck’s smiles anyway.

“So what do you say?” he asks, his voice choked and a little stupid.

And Donghyuck really looks the prettiest as he laces his hand behind Mark’s shoulder, whispers, “Well, since I owe you, I guess I really need to go out with you,” and pulls him down again.


	3. bonus. jeno | true love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the lovely winhaoist bought me a kofi and prompted Jeno pining for Donghyuck in this au, so here it is. I didn't want it to be too angsty, but it was inevitable, considering you all know how the story has to go, but I think the ending makes up for it. I hope you like it and that there's enough pining ;u;  
> Also, to everyone who might not like how I've characterized Jeno, remembers he's just a teen in this fic, and a teen who doesn't know much about love. I did my best and I hope you'll like him bc I really like him.  
> (Remember I usually take prompts from people who support me on kofi, so if you want to see something written by me that's a sure way to get it~ Or you could trust in your luck and leave me a prompt on curiouscat, sometimes I write those too!)

In an inexplicable twist of fate, Jeno meets and befriends Donghyuck  _before_ Camp Half-Blood. It’s still at a camp – doesn’t that make it even more ironic? – a summer camp for the kids of the neighborhood. And it’s not even Jeno’s neighborhood, but his grandmother’s neighborhood, where he’s been forced to spend the summer while his father shoots his new movie in France. (Well, Jeno thinks it was France, because back then he was only seven years old and there was a lot he didn’t know, or didn’t care about, about his father’s job, or the places he went, or the endless streak of women he dated, one of them just happening to be the goddess of beauty and love).

So, there’s Lee Jeno, an L.A. kid (the only and most-talked-about son of the three-times Oscar winner world-famous super-star actor Lee), being dumped in Key West, in the middle of nowhere, like a shoebox, for his grandparents to take care about, and there’s Lee Donghyuck, the son of the woman who cleans the houses of the rich people living in the residential complex by the sea. And there’s the summer camp, when they meet.

They click immediately. They’re the same age, they both are of Korean descent, even their surnames are the same, but there’s not only that. They’re naturally drawn to each other, like tiny, colorful magnets. They don’t know, of course, how can they know, that they’re both demigods, but they get as close to finding out as they can be. Talking to each other, they discover they’re both dyslexic and have ADHD (something they will later find out is common to most of them), and that Donghyuck doesn’t know who his father is just as Jeno doesn’t know anything about his mother (another feature sadly typical of the children of gods)

Donghyuck is a true force of nature. He sings and laughs and holds Jeno’s hands, his tanned fingers so pretty around Jeno’s red, sunburnt wrist, and together they ditch the summer camp to walk around the beach,  _to the hidings of the pirates_ , Donghyuck says, in a low voice, like a secret only meant for Jeno and Jeno only.

There’s a common, although untrue, belief about children of Aphrodite. That they can make people fall in love with them, but they can’t possibly love anyone back because they’re in love with the concept of love.

“That’s not true,” says the most beautiful woman Jeno has ever met, when she comes to pick him up, the night of the storm. 

He and Donghyuck had stolen a boat, on the fourth of July, because Jeno wanted to see the fireworks from the sea and Jeno was, indeed, a son of Aphrodite, a Charmspeaker, and how could Donghyuck refuse one of his requests? They had stolen a boat, and they had sailed, just a couple of miles, Donghyuck had said, to see the fireworks from the ocean – oh, how beautiful would that be. And then the storm had come and boat had rolled under the force of the wind and the last thing Jeno saw was a light at the horizon, like a midnight sun.

He wakes up to a white room and a beautiful woman with an old and young face leaning over to feel his forehead with her pretty hand.

“Where’s Donghyuck?” he asks. That is, really, the first thing he asks. He doesn’t ask if the beautiful woman is his mother, because he doesn’t need to. He knows she’s his mother.

The woman sighs.

“His father took him home, to an extremely worried mother. And you should come home, to an extremely worried father.”

“So he’s okay, isn’t he?”

“As okay as he can be. He blames himself for what happened.”

Jeno bites his lip. “But he shouldn’t blame himself. I mean, I asked him...”

“You asked him. And he complied. Because you are my son, and your words have more power than you can imagine. Which is why you shouldn’t meet that boy again, for now.”

“But I want to talk to him, I want to apologize.”

The beautiful woman smiles. “That will not be possible. Next year you will attend a special camp for people like you.”

Jeno doesn’t know what she means with people like him. He doesn’t know who she is, other than his mother. No one is telling him anything. He leaves Key West that night, on a private jet sent by his father.

His mother kisses his forehead. It’s a pretty kiss, delicate, like the ones you see in fairytale books, but it feels cold.

“There’s a common, although untrue, belief about my children,” she says. “That they can make people fall in love with them, but they can’t possibly love anyone back because they’re in love with the concept of love. But that’s not true, my son. That’s not true. We are the one who understand love better than anyone else, but we’re not immune to it. No one can be immune to love. And love hurts. I don’t want you to meet that boy again, Jeno.”

Seven, eight, nine years from that moment, Jeno will finally realize she probably knew all along that Lee Donghyuck was going to break his heart. But he doesn’t know. And he’s only seven years old, he can’t just call Donghyuck, can he? Well, it turns out he can. He runs away from home, finds a phone cabin and tries, many times. He calls all the Lee in Key West, but Donghyuck never answers. In the end, Jeno manages to contact Donghyuck’s old landlady with the help of a handmaid.

“His mother passed away two months ago. I don’t know where the little boy is. His father came and took him away. I’m sorry.”

Jeno learns of heartbreak even before he learns about love. It tastes bitter, like regret, and also a little sweet, like the memories of the sunny afternoons he spent with Donghyuck, and bittersweet like the candies they shared on the beach in front of the sunset.

(It doesn’t last long, barely nine months. The bittersweet feeling is swept away the moment Jeno steps into Camp Half-Blood on his first day and sees a familiar pair of eyes staring at him with equal surprise and excitement. It is, he thinks, it must be. Destiny.)

 

 *

 

In a way, Jeno had always thought he and Donghyuck would end up together. It’s the reason he didn’t worry about Mark, when the new boy arrived at Camp Half-Blood a couple of years ago and Donghyuck asked him – the newcomer, and not Jeno – to help him steal his father’s flying chariot. Maybe he should’ve worried, though.

Jeno is a son of Aphrodite and he's fascinated by the idea of love. He likes first love and love at first sight, he likes awkward love and confident love and love like the one in fairytales, perfect and pure and everlasting. He likes unrequited love too. He especially likes the way unrequited love looks on Donghyuck, because it comes with something akin to relief spreading in his gut like thick honey. If Mark Lee doesn’t like Donghyuck back, Jeno doesn’t have to worry. He still has a chance.

The thing is. Jeno likes Mark. Just like he likes Renjun and Jaemin and literally everyone else. It only makes sense, because Jeno is the son of the goddess of love and he has so much love to give, so he likes everyone, Mark included. But he likes Donghyuck more. And it’s easy to use his Charm with Mark. For a son of Zeus, the boy is extremely gullible and he falls into Jeno’s trap easily, awkwardly, blushing and stuttering and bumping into the wall every time Jeno is around. The thought that not even a son of Zeus can resist him makes Jeno feels powerful. The look of sadness in Donghyuck’s eyes and the way he bites his bottom lip and clenches his fist and hunches his shoulder in defeat when he realizes – when everyone realizes – Mark likes Jeno, well, that makes him feel like shit.

When Jeno comes home, that night, he finds Jaehyun sitting on his bed, waiting for him. They don’t talk, for a long moment, but Jeno knows exactly why Jaehyun is there.

“I’m sorry,” he says, ducking his head low, and Jaehyun sighs.

“Look, my little, naive half-brother, I know what you’re being through. Trust me, I know. You like the boy, you want the boy, and you can make almost everyone in this camp fall at your feet but not that boy. You know why?”

“Because I can’t create love.”

“No,” Jaehyun says, with an air of finality. “I mean yes, you’re right. You can’t. You can make people like you, but that’s not love. And it’s not my place to tell you why it’s wrong to play with people’s feelings, but our mother never really cared about teaching us these things and I had to learn the hard way.”

Jaehyun is, as usual, right. Despite how much the goddess of romantic love knows about romantic love, she fails at the motherly love thing so bad it hurts. Not her, but all her children. Jeno remembers how pretty she was, but not her warmth or her smell or her voice. She’s like a ghost, no matter how close she came the couple of times they met, he couldn’t touch her. And she warned Jeno about heartbreak – against Donghyuck – but she never warned him against himself and the things he could do.

“It’s not your fault,” Jaehyun says, noticing the way Jeno’s face falls as he thinks about how bad he fucked up. “You’re a kid, Jeno. No one is expecting you to know what is right and what is wrong, but if we wait for her to explain it to you, you might never learn. And I don’t want to see you making the same mistakes I did.”

“What do you think I should do?” Jeno asks, because, among his many sisters and few brothers, he is the closest with Jaehyun.

“I think you should let Mark’s crush on you die. Don’t encourage him. You’d hurt Donghyuck, and you don’t want to hurt Donghyuck, do you?”

Does Jeno? Donghyuck is his best friend, but Jeno likes him so much. And Jeno is fifteen, a petty teenager, and there’s a big part of him that wants to make Donghyuck happy, but there’s also a small, insidious part of him that wants him to be the only one who can make Donghyuck happy. A tiny little voice that told him to ruin things for Donghyuck, to take away all his happiness until he only had Jeno left. It’s ugly, and childish, and so, so stupid.

“I just wanted Donghyuck to like me,” he says, and he feels so ashamed. “I didn’t want to hurt him. I was just...”

Jealous. Jeno loathes to say the word, because he’s always been aware of the bad sides of love as much as he’s aware of the good sides, but he likes... he likes the good things. Loyalty and trust, intimacy. He likes passion, even if he doesn’t understand it. He likes the ideas of loving someone so much you’re ready to sacrifice yourself for them, even if he’s never been close to feeling anything like that. He thought his feelings for Donghyuck were just like that, pretty and good, unstained. But now he’s jealous and petty and angry at himself and at Mark, at Donghyuck, at everything. More than everything else, he feels ashamed.

Jaehyun ruffles his hair. “We are the sons of the goddess of love, but we’re not immune to love.” His words echo with the memory of Aphrodite’s words, the first time Jeno met her, after the storm in Key West. Back then, he had been too young to understand. Now, maybe he’s starting to grasp it. No thanks to her, of course. “And when love hits you, it hits you fully. Pros and cons. Good and bad sides alike. There’s no discount just because you’re mommy’s pretty son.”

“So... this is normal?” Jeno asks, before Jaehyun leaves. Because, as his mother’s son, he’s always considered himself above the pains of love. But now he’s left wondering if this is how everyone else feels, tiny and confused and wrong, no matter what they do or how they do it, always wrong. And unworthy of love. 

He spreads his arms, trying to give Jaehyun an idea of the... the everything is feeling, and Jaehyun laughs in his face. “This is super normal. You’re a hormonal teenager, what did you expect? It’s your time to be jealous and dramatic and dumb and in love. Olympus and Tartarus, I don’t even want to know what’s going through your head right now.”

Jaehyun leaves, probably to hang out with his boyfriend, watching the shooting stars and everything else, the kind of thing Jeno would do with Jaemin and Renjun and Mark and Donghyuck, except Jaemin and Renjun are fighting among themselves because Jeno dated the both of them and Mark now has a crush on him and Donghyuck...

Donghyuck knocks on Jeno’s window completely out of the blue, and Jeno jumps up, startled, and almost fall off the bed.

“Open up, emptyhead,” Donghyuck says, rolling his eyes when Jeno can only stare at him, his mouth open in disbelief. “Come on, we don’t have the whole night. The shooting stars are already starting to fall!”

It’s difficult to read Donghyuck’s face as they walk back to the fields. The stars are big and silvery bright against the clear sky, but Donghyuck keeps his eyes trained on the ground.

“I thought no one wanted to see me tonight,” Jeno says in the end, feeling too tall and too big and like it’s going to break everything just by opening his mouth.

Donghyuck goes tense for a moment before he shrugs and the gesture hits Jeno like a whip to his face.

“I really fucked up this time,” he says, looking down.

Donghyuck scoffs. “You kinda did, but you’re my best friend and it doesn’t feel right to be out here having fun without you.”

They others are already waiting for them near the edge of the woods, chatting with a curious nymph. Jeno can see their profiles. They seem happy, relaxed. Thank the gods, he didn’t ruin this. He doesn’t want them to fight because of him again. He wants to spread the love. The good love.

“Hey, Jeno,” Donghyuck says, before the others can see them. “Mark is really... slow sometimes, but he’s a nice guy. The best guy. Please, don’t lead him on.”

“Would it really be okay for you, if I dated Mark? I thought you liked him.”

Donghyuck looks at him with a sad smile.

“I want him to be happy. I trust you to make him happy. Don’t break his heart.”

And that’s it, the love Jeno has ever dreamed of but has never been able to feel. The pretty one, the pure one, the love from fairy tales, selfless and clean and unbreakable.

Donghyuck is ready to let go of Mark, as long as Mark is happy. And what was Jeno going to do instead?

That night, Jeno looks at the shooting stars falling in the pitch black of Donghyuck’s eyes. He wants so much he doesn’t know how to put it into words. Mostly, he wants to make things right.

A long time ago, the goddess of love told Jeno to stay away from Donghyuck. He knows now, just like she knew back then, that Donghyuck is going to break his heart. But Donghyuck laughs, loud and unrestrained and so, so lovely, and Jeno thinks that, as long as he gets this, as long as it’s Donghyuck’s doing, he doesn’t mind gettting his heart broken.

 

 *

 

Jeno confesses because Donghyuck looks the prettiest when he’s around Mark. His eyes light up and his smile softens at the edges and he bites his bottom lip and Mark doesn’t notice, but Jeno does. Donghyuck is so in love he’s glowing, and Jeno can only hope he’s glowing too, suspended in that beautiful moment of uncertainty, between what has been and what could be, because he really, really loves Donghyuck. And it’s too easy to cling to that hope, to the ghost of a possibility rather than the crippling reality. If Jeno doesn’t confess, Donghyuck will never be able to reject him, won’t he?

“In all the years we’ve been friends, I’ve thought many things about you, Jeno Lee.” It’s Jaemin. It’s always Jaemin, who took the place of Jeno’s best friend when Jeno realized he looked at Donghyuck as something more than a friend. Donghyuck arrived first and Renjun arrived last, and Jaemin has always been in the middle. “I thought you were vain, foolish, a little shallow sometimes, petty, of course, and even downright cruel sometimes.”

“I was never cruel,” Jeno protests, and Jaemin’s eyes narrow dangerously.

“You set me up to fight to death against Renjun for the privilege to date you, but you forgot to tell either of us that you were only trying to make Donghyuck jealous. You used us.”

“I was fourteen...”

“For years!”

Well, he’s right. But it’s not like Jeno was always aware of what he was doing. “But I’ve stopped doing that now. Leading you guys on, I mean.”

“You did it three weeks ago!” Jaemin protests.

“That’s different, Nana. I’m just trying to push you in the right direction. Things would be a lot easier for everyone if you and Renjun realized I have stopped encouraging either of you and you keep fighting because you really just like each other.”

That, at least, shuts Jaemin up. Not for long.

“Well, things would be easier for everyone if you just confessed to Donghyuck. Like I said, I’ve thought many things about you, but never that you were a coward. Never before now.”

Oh, but there’s a first time for everything.

“You’re suffering Jeno, everyone can see that. Donghyuck can see that! If you don’t want to do for yourself, or for any of us, do it for him. Give him the chance to free you of your burden.”

But what if Jeno likes the burden? There’s only pain because there’s love, after all. Jeno likes to think he at least has that, love. But lately, even the love has started to shake, as the pain dulls out everything. And to protect that love, Jeno needs to break it.

So he confesses. He waits for Donghyuck after training, and for the first time in his life the words don’t come to him, his Charmspeaking useless, his confidence, his beauty, the aura around him, completely annihilated. Not even the powers of a son of Aphrodite can do anything to break true love.

So he confesses. Donghyuck rejects his feelings. It ends like this.

(Or maybe it doesn’t end. Jeno will not let it end. Maybe it wasn’t love, but it still was destiny, he thinks, as he tugs on Donghyuck’s sleeve. “You’re still my best friend, right?”

Donghyuck seems to glow as he says yes, and Jeno can only hope – he really, really hopes – that Mark Lee will treat him right, that Donghyuck will finally be able to be happy. It’s everything he wants, and it’s painful, but it feels right. This, too, is love.)

Afterwards, Jeno sits by the woods that night, alone. He doesn’t hear Aphrodite’s footsteps until she sits next to him.

“Was this really the only possible outcome?” Jeno asks her, when he feels like his voice won’t tremble over the words.

“How can I know? I’m the goddess of love, not destiny.”

For a moment, they let their silence drown in the cry of cicadas. Aphrodite scoots closer, her pretty hand closing against Jeno’s jaw in a gentle caress, catching a tear from the corner of his left eye with her thumb. Jeno hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“I told you to stay away from that boy, my son,” Aphrodite says, in the end. She sounds sad, and Jeno wonders if she really is, if she cares about him or if she just likes the idea of caring about someone. “He broke your heart.”

Did he, really? Hearts don’t break that easily.

“But you were very brave. You can only be very brave, or very foolish, to try to go against true love,” she continues, but Jeno shakes his head.

“What I feel for Donghyuck is also true love. It might be unhappy, it might be unfulfilled, it might be unrequited, but it’s love, and it’s not going to go away.”

Jeno loves Donghyuck. He still does. Love comes in all kinds and shapes, he realizes, and hearts don’t break. He won’t let them break.

He looks at his mother, feeling like he’s unveiled some kind of big secret, and she pouts at him, the most beautiful pout. For a moment, she reminds Jeno of Donghyuck.

“Oh, little Jeno. I don’t understand if you’re the best of my sons or the worst. Platonic love has never been my forte, I fear, but it is love... And if it makes you happy, who am I to complain?”

She disappears silently, without a goodbye.

Jeno’s heart throbs, it pulses in his chest. It hurts and it sings. It loves. It’s still in one piece. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed ~ Leave a kudos if you did or hmu on twitter @ aprilclaws if you want to chat ♥

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't opened a Percy Jackson book in four years but the PJ wikia helped me a lot (thank you wikia). Also, I divided all the nct members between the cabins but I only ended up talking about the dreamies and Taeyong (plus a ninja!Jaehyun). You're free to guess them if you want~  
> It was my first time writing this pairing so let me know if you liked it or come and find me on twitter at @/aprilclaws!  
> Thank you for reading ♥


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